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Blogging for gun safety reform and changing the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Common sense gun laws and gun safety reform and gun rights are not mutually exclusive.

Las Vegas is known for its’ casinos, hotels and restaurants where people go to ( hopefully) make some money and spend some money on shows featuring singers and other stars.

It is also now known for the cost of loose gun laws, bump fire stocks and lasting emotional, physical and health care costs for the victims and survivors of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting. The dead have been buried, leaving families with the actual financial cost of a funeral. And now the families and friends are spending their time and energy wondering why this happened to their loved one and how they will spend the rest of their lives without that person.

The sounds of weeping.

The survivors are traumatized and many will need counseling. They can’t get the scene out of their heads- the noise of the gunfire- the noise of the screaming- the noise of the dead and injured- the noise of people running for their lives-the noise of the sirens. And some will face astronomical financial costs as long as they live.

In this article there is a video where the sounds of screaming and the rapid fire of the gun are heard. It was frightening.

The sound of Congress doing something about changing gun laws after the massacre?

Silence.

The sound of the media 4 weeks out- silence.

We have already forgotten the Las Vegas shooting.

This is an American tragedy.

The victims and survivors have not forgotten. Time will tell if their voices will join the thousands of others who have experienced the loss of a loved one or friend, the injuries from bullets or the trauma of being at the scene of the shooting.

It is inexcusable that we have allowed them to get away with ignoring their responsibilities for protecting the public against insanely loose gun laws and allowing just about anyone to purchase just about any gun or accessory they want because they are cowards.

There will be a cost for this abrogation of responsibilities.

Congress members should pay with their seats. The rest of us are paying with our lives and the loss of loved ones.

SIEGEL: First, had you experienced anything like this, and did you sense your training kicking in at all during the – during this?

LACY: I’ve never experienced anything at this magnitude. I’ve seen a lot in 20 years in Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Panama, Turkey but nothing like this where you’re supposed to be out having a good time and you don’t expect something like this to happen. My training kicked in immediately, and I bolted and looked towards the – where the shots were being fired from. And then I started trying to assess the wounded and trying to get people out of the area so we could take care of those that needed help and get those others that could move out of the area so they were not – no longer in harm’s way.

The man was in the military and said this to the interviewer:

LACY: You know, if you want to describe what war is, I guess this is what looks like war but on a civilian scale. These people didn’t deserve it. And I’m just glad that there were true Americans that stayed behind and helped those that were wounded and helped the individuals that were deceased.

It was worse than war- on a civilian scale, as he said.

This woman came close to death. She describes the scene– listen to her, Congress members. Or can’t you bear the thought of the blood and carnage? Her family talks of how much this will cost and whether they will be able to afford the cost. Loss of work, loss of mobility, loss of functioning in everyday life, loss of freedom, loss of security. From the article:

At the hospital, people were lined up along the wall. “Just so many people, just stacked, and blood—just tons and tons of blood,” Sheppard said. She was lying on a gurney next to a girl who had been shot multiple times in the leg. “I was breathing really hard, and I was like, screaming and making noise, and I was really, really, really, really, really, really struggling.” She hollered that she was going to throw up, was given a bucket, and began vomiting blood. An X-ray machine was brought into the room. She heard someone say, “Surgery, immediately.” Her last memory before she woke up, five days later, is of a doctor—no one at the hospital knows who it was—grabbing her face with both hands, looking in her eyes, and telling her, “You’re gonna fucking make it. You’re gonna fucking do this.”

One of the misperceptions that accompanies a mass shooting is that those affected are divided into the victims, who are killed, and the survivors, who live. The news cycle moves on—as it already has, a month later—and the collective notion, insofar as anyone who wasn’t there or didn’t lose a loved one thinks about it, is that those who survived are in the process of moving on, too. But, for those who were injured, existence is transformed.

“…and I was, like, screaming and making noise….”

The silence of Congress is deafening.

Whose rights come first? The right for anyone to own and carry any gun wherever they want and to shoot innocent people? Or the right to live free from gun violence in our communities?

So far this year, 229 people have been struck by gunfire citywide — roughly 21 percent fewer than this time last year — most on the North Side. If the pace continues, Minneapolis will log 283 shootings this year.

In 2016, Minneapolis had 341 gunshot victims, after averaging 243 per year over the previous decade, according to department figures. The number of juvenile gunshot victims has also risen in each of the past five years. Four of the 14 people shot in Minneapolis last week were 18 or younger.

2545 Americans have been shot since the Las Vegas massacre according to the Gun Violence Archive.

As with other causes of death, injury or illness, we must deal with the evidence and the facts in order to understand what is happening. In Minnesota the facts are that urban gun violence is killing and injuring too many people.

Sigh.

772 have been killed.

Sigh.

Why does this carnage not get the attention it deserves? Simple- the NRA and corporate gun lobby are extremist organizations that have a hold on our country and our leaders. Why in the world our leaders are afraid of a distinct minority of Americans is not a puzzle. Follow the money. Follow the influence.

But the puzzle is solvable.

Corporations, including that of the corporate gun lobby, are in control of our Democracy. They are eroding our freedoms, our dignity, our rights to be safe and to solve the most important problems facing us as a country. As long as we continue to elect people who are beholden to these minority interests, we will contribute to the demise of the country our founders envisioned.

And those very people who are beholden and who influence our leaders blame everything on gangs. Yes, gangs are responsible for much of our urban gun violence. And black men account for 50% of homicide victims according to this 2015 report from The Trace. I recommend reading the linked article for other statistics about gun violence in the year 2015 since it addresses the issues I have mentioned as concerns and puzzles that we can solve if we make some new laws, improve old laws and change the culture and the conversation around gun violence in America.

But to just cast blame and then claim that their lives don’t matter is cynical and mean. Much of the urban gun violence is due to gang activity. It is among people who know each other for the most part except when an innocent person gets caught in the crossfire like the Birdell Beeks whose daughter I have come to know.

Domestic violence is also in urban areas as are suicides. Children find guns they shouldn’t find in urban areas as well as rural areas.

The bottom line is the easy access to guns. That we can change by changing the conversation, getting involved with efforts to intervene in urban areas by offering services that will help our youth get out of poverty, make sure they have access to health care, education and other basic needs and to interrupt the cycle of violence.

And we can pass stronger laws to make sure all gun sales have a background check, to strengthen straw purchasing, stolen guns and trafficking laws and Extreme Risk Protection Orders.

Finally we can and should elect politicians who actually care about public safety and saving lives lost to gun violence. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an American public health epidemic being ignored by our leaders.

Make the gun issue one of your issues. Demand answers from candidates about what they will do to prevent some of the gun violence in America. Don’t let them hide behind the second amendment. This is not about the second amendment and gun rights. This is about the rights of Americans to live free of insidious and devastating gun violence that affects dozens of families every day and it comes as a total shock.

After the Las Vegas shooting it should be a no brainer to do something about the carnage. If candidates avoid the issue, you will have your answer. Vote for the other person or persist in asking the question. What will he/she do about urban gun violence? What will he/she do about gun suicides? What will he/she do about small children getting access to guns and shooting themselves or others? What will he/she do about stolen guns that contribute to crimes and violence? What will he/she do about easy access to guns on our streets? What will he/she do about assault weapons? What will he/she do about high capacity magazines and accessories like silencers and bump fire stocks?

And then expect answers.

Gun violence is destructive to families and communities. People should be able to sit in their cars, walk in the streets, go to work and school, play on playgrounds, go to public places and be in their homes without encountering bullets.

It wouldn’t take too much common sense to change things. The current atmosphere, however, is far from common sense.

The families and friends of the worst mass shooting in American history have not moved on. They have just buried their loved ones. Children are missing their parents. Parents are missing their children. Siblings are grieving for their siblings.

There is a deep hole in the hearts of Americans all over the country.

Congress is at the bottom of that deep dark hole that is called avoiding action on something they could do something about. But they can’t do anything about a President run amok acting more crazy every day.

If the President tweeted about solutions to gun violence like he attacks anyone who has the nerve to disagree with him, we would be doing something tomorrow.

Alas, that will never happen.

Congress is at fault. Congress sits by and watches our country go deeper and deeper into some place we do not recognize any more.

We have huge problems that are sitting right in front of us every day. No action. No words. No nothing.

We are going around and around and around and around and getting nothing done on anything. Not health care. Not national security. Not gun violence. Not diplomacy. Not the economy. Nothing.

The free press is under attack. We do nothing.

Today and tomorrow and the day after that, about 90 Americans will die each day from gunshot injuries. That many or more will die from the opioid epidemic. Soldiers are dying. People will lose their health care. People still live in poverty. Kids and teens will shoot themselves or someone else with a gun left unsecured.

Halloween is approaching and our Congress is scared and scary in more ways than one. Our leaders are failing us in more ways than one. Our leaders claim that care about Americans. If they actually did, they would grow a spine and stand tall for the majority and do it proudly and feel good about it.

So where are we? We are where we are after every one of the nation’s mass shootings. Lapdog and weak politicians with no backbone are afraid to do what they know is right. Because…..rights.

Rights? Where are the rights of Americans to be safe when going to concerts, shopping at malls, going to college classes, sitting at work or school, having a drink at a nightclub or at a military base? They don’t count. Death is not their concern. If it was one of their own though, they would care.

The gun issue is not untouchable. We will make it touchable. We will demand answers and demand solutions. Politicians will have to address it. They will not be left to avoid it any more. Some are already changing their tune:

Another Democrat who had once been in the NRA’s favor, Rep. Tim Walz (Minn.), also donated a sum matching his past NRA contributions this week. Walz, who is running for governor and was under pressure from a Democratic primary opponent, sent $18,000 to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a nonprofit group that helps the families of service members who are killed or severely wounded.

“I’m doing what I can to get past the political attacks and back to addressing this problem,” Walz said, who also held an “A” rating.

They want to be elected and perhaps they are finally waking up to the common sense of the American voters. I have personally spoken with Rep. Tim Walz who is the only Democratic candidate for Governor with an A rating from the NRA. That is poison for him. We need to make it poison for all candidates. Gun violence is one of the most important issues of our day. It’s a public health epidemic that we are ignoring.

Below are the top 10 career recipients of N.R.A. funding – through donations or spending to benefit the candidate – among both current House and Senate members, along with their statements about the Las Vegas massacre. These representatives have a lot to say about it. All the while, they refuse to do anything to avoid the next massacre.

Senator John McCain heads the list and had this to say about the Las Vegas shooting: ““Cindy & I are praying for the victims of the terrible #LasVegasShooting & their families.”” He has taken $7,740,251 from the NRA in his career as a Senator. It goes on from there. You get the picture.

No- your prayers and thoughts are insincere as long as you don’t have the spine to stand up for the victims and actually do something to prevent at least some shootings.

American voters say 63 – 27 percent that it’s possible to make new gun laws without interfering with gun rights. Republicans voters say 51 – 37 percent that it’s possible to make gun laws that don’t interfere with gun rights and voters in gun households agree 57 – 33 percent. “The Las Vegas massacre echoes though a survey that shows American voters want stricter gun laws and a ban on high-capacity clips and bump stocks, the device that makes a lethal weapon even more lethal,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. -m

So Speaker Ryan and Republicans in control of our country- what say you?

Shame on them all. We need much more than a ban on bump fire stocks.

What we need is a comprehensive bill to make America safe again, including a ban on bump fire stocks, a reduction in the number of bullets in an ammunition magazine, a ban on certain types of assault rifles and the accompanying features that can be added to make them more deadly, universal Brady background checks, research into the causes and effects of gun violence, adequate funding for the ATF, stronger straw purchasing and gun trafficking laws, mandatory training before owning or carrying a gun, mandatory secure storage of guns, child access prevention laws, gun violence protection orders, limiting who can carry a loaded weapon around in public, and yes, perhaps even a system of gun registration.

These are my personal ideas by the way. Some of them, but not all, are shared by other gun control groups. But I am writing for myself on this blog post.

What we don’t need is concealed carry reciprocity, the NRA’s wet dream, that would leave us all with gun carrying yahoos walking around anywhere we are gathered in our communities without a shred of training with that gun and no permit to carry it. What we don’t need is for the deregulation of gun silencers so mass shooters can carry out their massacres making much less noise so law enforcement and victims can’t locate the shooter in order to flee or stop him.

Even Speaker Ryan got a spine for just a little while after the Las Vegas shooting. But never trust that the gun lobby will let it go away. They will be back. They will scare the lapdogs who carry their water into voting on a bill that makes no common sense and is a slippery slope to to doing away with the 1934 Gun Control Act.

I have spoken to many hunters and gun owners before and since the Las Vegas shooting. They agree with every one of these measures. And yes, to the gun extremist who doubted that my husband was a hunter and gun owner, he is. And he agrees with me and would even were he not married to me.

Oh, and I forgot to add the repeal of PLCAA and the Tiarht amendment and bringing law suits against gun manufacturers and sellers.

Like the rest of America I learned of the latest mass shooting in Las Vegas last Monday morning. My first thought was there will be fatalities. Families like mine receiving the devastating, life-altering news that a loved one has been murdered. That friends and family members will never come home again. More lives taken by bullets. These families will unknowingly and unwillingly join the sad club that no one wants to join. Tragically this club continues to grow, because a small loud vocal group of extremists love their guns more than they love their families. So I cry out to you America, it’s time to rise up and out shout the extremists to honor the 58 lives cut down at a music concert. It’s time to rise up and help me and thousands of other gun violence survivors, so that your family won’t receive the devastating phone call that a family member has been murdered by a disturbed man with a gun. Pick up your phone and call your U.S. Congressman and Senator and demand they fight for gun safety laws.

Speaker Paul Ryan- where are you? Senator Mitch McConnell- where are you?

Hiding in plain sight behind the second amendment with absolutely no backbone or will to protect your fellow Americans from senseless shootings. We know how the Las Vegas shooting happened Speaker Ryan, since that was your excuse to do nothing. It was the guns stupid. It was our nation’s feckless gun laws that allow easy access to weapons of mass destruction meant for war that allowed this to happen.

Get a backbone. Get some common sense for the love of God. If you are too weak to even consider challenging the corporate gun lobby over bump fire stocks that were used to massacre 58 Americans in cold blood, you don’t deserve to be sitting in your seats. Go home and be with your families and let those who are bold, courageous and with backbone do what needs to be done.

The thing is, every country has angry men. Every country has people who are dangerously mentally ill or who are felons or domestic abusers. But only in America do we have these people accessing arsenals of weapons to inflict mass destruction.

58 dead and over 500 injured and we are told to be quiet and talk about guns and gun violence another time.

We were even told by South Dakota Senator John Thune to do more to get away from a shooter who is aiming a weapon with a “bump stock” making it act like a fully automatic weapon. He said we should “get small”.

Yes, he said that. He blamed the victims. I called his office and asked for an apology. As my family has suffered the loss of my sister to a gun homicide, I was wondering if she got small to try to defend herself against the totally unexpected situation of her estranged husband holding a gun to her head at close range. Then I started wondering if those innocent little children mowed down at Sandy Hook Elementary School could have gotten any smaller when a shooter rushed into their classrooms with no warning and opened fire.

Or what about Rep. Steve Scalise- one of their own? Could he have made himself small as a shooter took aim and seriously injured him? Yet, even he is afraid to speak up for what makes common sense. In fact in this article he claims that his own shooting “fortified his views on gun rights.” What? Yes, he said that. Check it out if you don’t believe me.

A stubborn adherence to an agenda without thinking through what could change to make us safer does not make sense- unless we follow the money and influence and the years of the gun lobby fooling us into believing that more guns would make us safer.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Insanity reigns.

And it’s not the claimed insanity of the shooters I am talking about. It is our very own elected leaders who are exhibiting insanity.

We are told that this is about mental illness and evil people- not guns.

(Oh- and I haven’t even talked about the daily carnage from guns aside from the almost daily mass shootings. That would be the 90 or so Americans who die every day from gunshot injuries that don’t get 24/7 media attention. One just happened in my home town- a young man used a gun to end his own life.)

Second, turning immediately to the “sickness” of the shooter and piously calling for better mental-health care is, more often than not, an attempt to divert attention from the main issue: guns. (It’s also breathtakingly cynical because the politicians who use this rhetoric are typically the ones who also aim to cut funding for mental-health treatment.) Every conversation about gun deaths should begin by recognizing one blindingly clear fact about this problem — the United States is on its own planet. The gun-related death rate in the United States is 10 timesthat of other advanced industrial countries. Places such as Japan and South Korea have close to zero gun-related deaths in a year. The United States has around 30,000.

This disparity is the central fact that needs to be studied, explained and addressed. When seen in this light, it becomes obvious why focusing on mental health is a dodge. The rate of mental illness in the United States is not anywhere close to 40 times the rate in Britain. But the rate of gun deaths is 40 times higher. America does have more than 14 times as many guns as Britain per capita, and far fewer restrictions on their ownership and use. That’s the obvious correlation staring us in the face, as we insist on talking about every other possible issue.

And then, he says what is now being spoken out loud but was only quietly said after each of the other now more frequent mass shootings that inflict only America:

Given the Second Amendment, America’s gun culture and the influence of the gun lobby, there isn’t any simple answer. But there are many small fixes that would make a big difference: universal background checks; restrictions on military-style weaponry (of which banning bump stocks would be a tiny first step); a ban on selling to people with a history of domestic violence or substance abuse. But first we have to stop the dodges and the diversions. When you consider America’s stubborn inaction in the face of this continuing and preventable epidemic of gun violence — I sometimes wonder if it is all of us Americans who are crazy.

It is actually not all of us. It is some of us. But we are all responsible for not taking on the lapdog politicians who owe allegiance to the corporate gun lobby. Shame on us all.

Who will be next? Where will the next deadliest shooting take place?

The NRA is trying again to fool us all ( cleverly and cynically) by saying maybe they would consider dealing with the “bump stocks” that were used in the nation’s worst massacre from guns. Who do they think they are fooling? Lapdog politicians for a few.

Why are “bump stocks” even a thing?

We are not fooled. The fox is guarding the hen house. In what world does the industry that makes the weapons used to mow down this many people get to decide on the policies that have allowed this to happen in the first place?

The NRA and its allies in the gun-rights movement want to avoid the airing in Congress of controversial issues such as universal background checks on gun sales, a ban on assault weapons and limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

When we make noise, it doesn’t look good for them. Profits may tumble. Power may crumble. More lives may be saved.

It’s been a hard week. The NRA went dark while the rest of us had vigils and calls to action. And no, thoughts and prayers are clearly not going to fix America’s unique national gun violence epidemic.

Other countries have angry people and domestic abusers and felons and people with dangerous mental illness. What they don’t have is these people killing innocent citizens with guns they shouldn’t have had in the first place.

All brought to you by the corporate gun lobby.

Now is the time to talk about our gun violence epidemic. NOW IS THE TIME.

94% of Americans know this. Even Republicans. Even gun owners. But their leaders are not acting and, indeed, acting against the wishes of their constituents.

Shameful. Deplorable.

Those who refuse to act lack the courage to do what even in their own hearts they know is right.

We can see you. We can see how much you have taken to stop efforts to save lives.

Shame on you.

It’s the guns, stupid. Or is it the stupid guns?

Our local Rabbi sent me this when he regretted he could not attend our candlelight vigil the other night due to a Jewish holiday:

“I join with all those who grieve at the massacre that took place in Las Vegas and who are frustrated at the timidity of our elected representatives who fail to enact reasonable gun control measures or, worse yet, seek to loosen those that already exist.”

Yes- loosen. Speaker Paul Ryan took the SHARE act off of the table- for now- knowing how insane it would be to consider deregulating gun silencers in light of the discussion about how much worse this mass shooting could have been had the shooter used silencers.

They got caught this time. The media and sane politicians exposed this insanity.

But we don’t trust that it will stay off the floor. After the tears dry and the talk dies down and the victims’ families quietly mourn, the lapdog politicians will try to sneak it in.

Insanity.

And we know that the NRA has already said that their priority is the national concealed carry reciprocity act. In light of the Las Vegas massacre, we ought to consider how cynical it is to push this bill right now. But it will be used as another excuse to loosen gun laws that need tightening. Because- rights- the second amendment. I mean, think about how a person without a permit or training could have saved the day outside of the Mandalay Bay hotel that night!

The least fantastical is the idea that if a criminal threatens or attacks tomorrow, you want a gun handy to kill him. Being prepared for a showdown with a bad guy is the main reason gun owners give for owning one, and in the surveys that answer has doubled since the 1990s. During the same period, the chance of an American actually having such an encounter has decreased by half. In New York City, where restrictions on owning and carrying guns are among the strictest in the United States, the chance of being murdered is 81 percent less than it was in 1990. (…)

But beyond the prospect of protecting oneself against random attacks—and by the way, among the million-plus Americans interviewed in 10 years of Crime Victimization Surveys, exactly one sexual assault victim used a gun in self-defense—several outlandish scenarios and pure fantasies drive the politics of gun control. One newer fantasy has it that in the face of an attack by jihadi terrorists, armed random civilians will save the day. Another is the fantasy that patriots will be obliged to become terrorist rebels, like Americans did in 1776 and 1861, this time to defend liberty against the U.S. government before it fully reveals itself as a tyrannical fascist-socialist-globalist regime and tries to confiscate every private gun.

A friend noted on her Facebook page that it dawned on her that gun control is actually guns controlling our politicians.

#Enough 59 dead. Hundreds injured. So much more information yet to come. I will be blogging about this when I am less exhausted and less angry about what just happened in America. There is no excuse. There is no reason for this. There is no common sense. Congress has no backbone. The gun lobby is an insane extremist organization that deceives the public about the risks of guns. Not everyone should be able to buy a gun. Some people are too dangerous for guns. Weapons of war should not be available to just anyone. All guns should have a background check. Stronger gun laws WOULD prevent some of the shootings. More guns have not and do not make us safer. Someone with a gun could have done nothing to save lives in this shooting. American gun laws are very lax. The American gun culture is totally out of whack. The second amendment does not mean this. We all have a right to be safe in our homes, at concerts, in schools, malls, nightclubs.

And Congress wants to act to loosen regulations about gun silencers this week.

Insanity,

Where is common sense?

I mourn the victims and mourn with their families. We all have PTSD. The 2 deadliest shootings in the country happened in the last 2 years. When is the next one? What will we do? Nothing is not an option. It never was. Demand action. Thoughts and prayers are nice but we need much much more than that.

In our country we are called on to remember the anniversaries of mass shootings like they are holidays or birthdays. What is an anniversary? Isn’t it supposed to be a celebration of some kind? Instead, families have to wake up in the morning and remember that two years yesterday, their loved one or friend was still alive and going about their daily business. No thoughts that the next day, they would get the phone call telling them that their loved one was murdered by a crazed gunman on a college campus.

It turns out that the shooter left a “manifesto” behind that he wanted law enforcement and others to see. Often shooters like this want the attention after a shooting they commit and like to see themselves in the news. There is definitely something sick about that. But this young man shot and killed himself as also often happens. But he left his crazed and distorted thoughts behind him.

From the article:

… shot himself in the head after he was wounded by police. Authorities found nine guns stashed in his backpack, in a college restroom and at his home.

In the document, the 26-year-old community college student wrote that he is part of a “demonic Hierarchy” and will become a demon when he dies and return “to kill again and again” after possessing someone else.

He makes it clear that he idolizes other mass shooters and says he has studied their methods but faults them for not killing more people or for not killing police officers.

He also paints himself as a “loser,” with nothing to live for and no successes in life.

“My whole life has been one lonely enterprise. One loss after another. And here I am, 26, with no friends, no job, no girlfriend, a virgin,” he wrote.

“But for people like me there is another world, a darker world that welcomes us. For people like us this (is) all that’s left,” he wrote. “My success in Hell is assured.”

Disturbing.

This is an American tragedy.

If we had any common sense we would get to work to do something to keep guns away from people like this. Our leaders lack courage. The public believes that nothing can be done. We get desensitized to the carnage.

The thing is, candles, prayers, thoughts, bells ringing and flowers are just not enough. They won’t bring back the lives lost. We may feel a bit better or we may feel a bit worse after we do something to assuage our guilt and remember an deadly day.

We want action.

I ask you to picture your own child, sister, brother, parent or good friend lying in a pool of blood after being shot by someone who should never have been able to get 9 guns let alone one. And then I ask you to think about what you would do about this?

Your life would be shattered and devastated as were the lives of the victims. Even the shooter’s family can never be the same. The ripple effect of gun violence is wide. We will never know what these victims ( and all shooting victims) would have contributed to society. We have lost their potential and are left with memories and celebrating an anniversary of their deaths.